


Careful

by ouroboros



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boundaries, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouroboros/pseuds/ouroboros
Summary: When it comes time to go their separate ways, Suga finds himself freezing up. He wants to hug him, wants to see up close just how much taller Kageyama has gotten, but he's not sure if that’s still something he wouldn’t like, so he hangs back. "You'll text me about running next week, right?"Kageyama nods, solemn as ever. Suga feels better--he made the right call.The Kageyama that Suga remembers from school never liked to be touched, but after reconnecting five years later, things might be different.





	Careful

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully some of y'all out there still care about Kagesuga as much as I do ;-;
> 
>  
> 
> This fic isn't about abuse, but the subject briefly comes up in discussion, just in case anyone would like that warning.

Five years after Suga graduates Karasuno, he runs into Kageyama at a 7-11. Literally. He's looking over his shoulder when it happens, remembering an aisle he meant to go down. As he turns, his arm reaches out to steady whoever he's jostled on instinct, and when he realizes who it is, he pulls back with just as quick a reflex.

"Oh," he says, grinning, as Kageyama stares back at him, "hello!"

Kageyama is uninjured, but Suga takes him out to dinner anyway. Their conversation flows easier than Suga expects--Suga doesn’t have many exciting things to say about his desk job, but Kageyama's life in pro volleyball lends itself to many stories. Kageyama tells them well, with a practiced, even tone. He even holds eye contact with Suga for significant periods of time, too. He is different than how Suga remembers.

He wonders if the other things he remembers about Kageyama have changed, too. His mind is a flood of things he'd tried not to dwell on in the years since. His pulse jumps with every small, new, almost confident quirk up of Kageyama's mouth.

 

_It starts in high school, when keeping an eye on Kageyama’s movements is a method of survival, almost. He has to know all the ways Kageyama moves, all the different angles his body makes as he excels at every single aspect of volleyball. Suga can’t keep up if he doesn’t pay attention._

_He can’t keep up even with constant observation, as it turns out. After a while that becomes almost okay, and by then he’s used to watching. It becomes less about keeping tabs on Kageyama as a setter, and more just about appreciating him. Trying to figure him out._

_Kageyama Tobio scrunches up his nose when he is concentrating, when he is surprised, and when he is uncomfortable. When he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, they are in fists by his sides. When he smiles, he has one dimple only, under the left side of his mouth. He does not smile often. Suga has not seen him laugh._

_Kageyama Tobio, Suga notices, does not like to be touched. He’ll high-five when he has to, but he’ll flex his hand after. He scoots away if someone sits too close. He doesn’t flinch when a volleyball is spiked directly at his face, but he does if someone pats him on the back. Then there’s the whole lazy arm around the shoulders, sleeping in a pile, sweaty team hug camaraderie that Kageyama always remains on the fringes of, and when he’s pulled in forcibly, he always looks sick to his stomach._

 

When it comes time to go their separate ways, Suga finds himself freezing up. He wants to hug him, wants to see, up close, just how much taller Kageyama has gotten, but he's not sure if that’s still a thing he wouldn’t like, so he hangs back. "You'll text me about running next week, right?"

Kageyama nods, solemn as ever. Suga feels better--he made the right call.

~~

The second time they meet, he feels the old familiar pull even more strongly. Still, he resists putting his hand on the small of Kageyama's back as they skirt around a woman walking five dogs during their cooldown. He doesn't tuck the sweaty bit of hair stuck to Kageyama's forehead behind his ear. And when it is time to leave, he keeps his hands firmly in their pockets.

When he is about to turn to go, Kageyama huffs like he wants to say something else.

“What’s up?”

“Do you not hug people goodbye?” Kageyama asks, after a long moment of silence, and the soft, guarded tone in his voice is a fist to the guts.

“I didn’t mean...I thought you wouldn’t like it.” Suga says, helplessly. Had he read him wrong the whole time? Or had something changed since high school? “It’s not like I don’t want to, though.” He’s not sure if that bit is too much, but he says it anyway.

Kageyama nods, taking it in. He is silent for a long moment. “I think...I want you to.”

“Okay then.” Suga steps toward him, stands on his tiptoes, and wraps his arms around Kageyama’s body. One slips under his arm and settles on the middle of his back, fingers splayed lightly across the planes of muscle that Suga can feel the tension in, and the other goes up around his neck, his fingers even more tentative on the nape of Kageyama’s neck. Chest to chest, Suga tucks his chin against Kageyama’s collarbone, and holds on, firm but gentle. He feels Kageyama’s breath shake under him. Slowly, awkwardly, his arms raise to press against Suga’s back.

~~

The next time they run together, Kageyama does not wait until it is time to part ways. He walks straight up to where Suga is waiting for him, stretching his calves against the legs of a park bench, and hugs him, whispering a shaky “Hello” into his ear. Suga could melt into the ground, probably, if he knew he wasn’t partially responsible for holding Kageyama up.

He smiles against his shoulder and runs his nails under the flip of hair at the base of Kageyama’s neck. “Hello, Tobio.”

Kageyama pulls away after a few seconds. His cheeks are flushed and his eyebrows are pulled even tighter together than usual. Suga doesn't bother biting back his own smile, and knocks Kageyama's foot with his own. "Ready?"

 

_Once, Suga forgets himself. They’re away at a training camp, and the midnight giggles are hitting everyone. Pillows are thrown, Tanaka starts wrestling Noya, and Kageyama’s face looks relaxed, open, and happy. Suga’s chest feels like there are springs in it, looking at him, and he pokes at his ribs, wanting to get more of it. He realizes his mistake immediately and pulls his hand away, but Kageyama turns, shutters his arms across his body and stares at the ground, deactivated. The light on his face is gone. Suga apologizes, and no one else notices, but it eats at him the rest of the night, and beyond it._

_The more he realizes he shouldn’t touch Kageyama, the more he questions why he’d want to in the first place. He feels guilty for that for many layers of reasons, so he puts it out of his mind as best he can._

_It’s in Suga’s nature to want to talk to him about it, but it’s also in his nature not to dig if it doesn’t seem appropriate. Instead, he finds himself guarding Kageyama from being touched when he can. He does things like intercept Tanaka when he’s barreling toward Kageyama after a particularly genius gamewinning play, a swift chop to his side. “Be sportsmanlike,” he chides._

 ~~

The time after that, Suga plans on making them dinner, but when Kageyama gets to his apartment, he sits facing Suga on the couch and tucks his feet under his thighs, talking calmly about his team’s new training regimen that he thinks is too easy.

He shifts as he talks, leaning further into Suga, who lets his body mold around whatever it is Kageyama is doing.

“We ran harder drills in high school, is all.” He leans his head against Suga’s chest.

Suga can see the furrowed line between his eyebrows when he looks down at him, and he wonders if he can hear how loud his heart is thumping. Holding him like this feels like cupping a baby bird in the palms of his hands, which Suga knows is wildly incongruous with the fact that Kageyama is significantly taller and broader than he is, but he feels the delicacy of it, of him, of the situation, just the same.

Suga shifts his hips a bit to adjust, and Kageyama doesn’t loosen his grip to allow it to happen easily, so when Suga settles back down, it’s in a slumped, almost laying down position, with Kageyama tucked neatly between him and the back of the couch, their legs tangled together. Kageyama is quiet.

“This is still good, right?” Suga says.

Kageyama doesn’t answer for a bit, and Suga can still feel his heartbeat thumping against his side. Eventually, he nods.

Suga remembers, shamefully, all the times he almost asked in high school, all the times he was too afraid of the answer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Kageyama shakes his head.

Suga laughs, light as he can make it, and buries his face in Kageyama’s hair. “Fair enough, for now,” he says. They end up ordering delivery.

 

_When the third years graduate, Kageyama bows goodbye to each of them in turn. Suga is last, and his arm reaches out reflexively, stopping before it reaches Kageyama’s shoulder. They stare at each other for a long moment as the others chatter around them, unnoticing. Kageyama nods and steps forward, face pink, but then Hinata bounds up to hug Asahi, jostling him, and the line of possibility between them snaps._

_Suga smiles at him and runs his hand through his own hair, giving Kageyama the casual excuse to do the same._

_When he leaves, he feels tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. He blinks them back, but he knows himself well enough to know it isn’t some sappy misguided feeling about the end of High School. He knows how to identify the empty gnaw of having made the wrong call when he feels it._

 ~~

The next week when Kageyama invites him over, there is no pretense about how they will spend their time together, no plan they make that they both know they won’t actually follow through on. As soon as Suga has taken off his shoes, Kageyama takes him by the hand and pulls him into his room, down onto his bed, settling in to tuck himself against every corner of him.

It is bafflingly new and surprising, but there is a stubborn edge to Kageyama’s quiet orchestration of their bodies that is distinctly familiar, and it makes Suga smile. Of course he would be as steadily demanding in needing to touch Suga as he had been in having not to.

They talk some, about high school, about their current lives, about whatever comes to mind, but there are also long periods of quiet, the only sounds being the thump of a pulse, the soft, steady scratch of Suga’s fingernails on the small of Kageyama’s back, the occasional sigh.

“Tobio,” Suga starts, after a long lull.

Kageyama must have sensed the tone in his voice because all he says is “Not yet.”

Suga knows they should talk about it. Kageyama’s crotch pressed against Suga’s hip is a blatant, present thing, but neither of them does anything about it. He isn’t sure where Kageyama’s boundaries lie, anymore. He wonders, as his fingers trail the goosebumps along the soft line of Kageyama’s hipbone, where it curves out from the edge of his sweatpants, how close he is to finding it.

They don’t talk yet, but they don’t do anything else, either. They doze on each other until dusk, when Suga goes politely home.

 

_After Suga graduates, he moves to Tokyo, and they do not see each other again for five years. Suga tries not to think too often about how he could have handled it differently. Sometimes he does, though, on accident. He’ll see a flash of Kageyama in his mind, a tendon in his neck pulled taut, and wonder what it would have been like to kiss it. He’ll see news of Kageyama’s team on tv, watch the sweat drip down his cheek as he excels further than Suga even thought possible at the position they both loved, and he’ll bite his bottom lip, a pit of want building in his stomach. When he collides with a body in the 7-11 and turns around to see him, it takes a moment for all the features he’d kept in his memory to coalesce into the person standing, staring at him. His fingers twitch with anticipation, with nerves._

 ~~

When Suga opens the door for Kageyama a few days later, he expects more of the same. He has spent the previous days trying not to overthink it, deciding to let Kageyama figure out whatever is happening at his own pace.

Kageyama doesn't immediately reach for him, though. He comes inside and quietly, slowly, takes his shoes off. He tucks the laces inside and places them neatly next to each other, stands up, and then bends down to straighten them again. He does not look at Suga. Eventually, he stands, looking down to where his toes curl against the scratched hardwood, shoulders tense, hands in fists by his side. Suga can almost see his sixteen year old self hunched inside him. It hurts.

"Hey," Suga keeps his voice soft, "you ok?" He slides his fingers against the underside of Kageyama's wrist, the barest hint of a guiding movement toward himself, if Kageyama wants to follow it.

He does. He launches himself at Suga, planting his face into the crook of his neck. The rest of him is hunched over, folding in on himself, on Suga.

“Did something happen?”

Kageyama shakes his head.

“Did-- Is it about this?” Suga punctuates it with a gentle squeeze, wrapping his arms around him.

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” Suga slides his hands down Kageyama’s arms, catching his fists, which loosen at the touch. Fingers interlocked, he steps backward, leading Kageyama to the couch. When they sit down, he leaves space between where they sit, cross legged, facing each other. He wonders if this is going to be it. If Kageyama has come to tell him why it can’t go further. He’s prepared for that. He’d understand it. He doesn’t let go of Kageyama’s hand, though. He could pretend it’s to be a steadying influence, and he does hope it is, but he knows it isn’t only that. There’s a part of him he knows is selfish that remembers the way he watched those hands move to specific purpose when they were younger, long fingers hitting a volleyball with precision and grace. He remembers how they’ve felt, recently, clutching at his shirt, tracing his spine, running along the edge of his jaw like it is something to be wondered at.

He waits for Kageyama to speak.

"I want to kiss you."

Suga can’t help the laugh of relief that bubbles out of him. "That's okay. You can do that. I’d _like_ that.”

Kageyama doesn’t smile. “You thought I didn’t want you to touch me. That’s why you didn’t hug me.”

He remembers the awkward end to their first meetings in the months prior, but the memory of their final meeting five years ago still loops in his head. It feels like there is a question in what Kageyama is saying, somewhere, so Suga tries to answer it. “I noticed. At Karasuno. You didn’t seem to like being touched. By anyone. So I never did. I don’t know if that was the right thing to have done, but. I was young.” He shrugs.

“Did you want to?”

“I was your senpai. I was trying to be respectful.”

“What about now?”

Suga inhales slowly. “I still want to be respectful. But that can mean something different if you want it to.”

There is a tug at the corner of Kageyama’s mouth. “I didn’t think I wanted it either. Touching usually feels like…” His shoulders shiver. “Like sandpaper, wrapped too tight, all around me.”

Suga is aware of what he could be unleashing, and he wants nothing more than to be careful. But Kageyama is finally talking, so he draws it out, gentle. “Even when you were young? Even with your family?”

“Yes.” His eyes go darker, but he doesn’t shut down or pull away. “I know what you're asking me. They didn’t...No one hurt me. But no one really hugged, either.”

“That’s…” _a kind of hurt_ , Suga wants to say, but Kageyama shakes his head, staring at the floor, and Suga knows he’s done talking about it for now. Suga has a million more questions clawing at him, but he chooses one Kageyama might answer. “And now?”

“I want to kiss you, I told you.” His eyebrows pull together. It’s so simple and straightforward, as always. Suga reigns in his fondness. A grin would throw Kageyama off right now.

“Is that all you want?” Suga remembers Kageyama’s hands, poised at the edge of his jeans, tracing the hem. He remembers the stillness of his hips, not pressing his erection into Suga, but knowing it was there. He remembers his shaky, shaky breath.

Kageyama looks at him directly, and God, it’s possibly for the best that he doesn’t often hold eye contact, because Suga feels the full weight of his gaze, his total focus all at once, and it’s dizzying. “No. It’s not all.”

Suga opens his mouth again, but Kageyama, it seems, has had enough of talking. He puts his pretty, powerful hands on either side of Suga’s face, and with the steadiest attention, kisses Suga on the lips.

It is unpracticed, of course, but Suga is lightheaded from it anyway, and lets Kageyama push him backward till he’s being straddled, head against the armrest. Kageyama pulls back and looks at Suga, and Suga recognizes the expression from years ago on the court. The moment of surety, of drive and dedication before a serve he knows will land. When he kisses Suga again, it is a long time before he comes up for air.

Kageyama’s face is flushed and his lips are kiss-plump and parted. He’s not smiling, but he looks happy nonetheless, and Suga marvels at it. “What makes this different? Why doesn’t it feel bad?”

Kageyama shrugs one shoulder. “I’m ready. And It’s you.”

This is a path Suga knows he can’t go down lightly. He’s dated seriously, had casual flings and a one night stand or seven. This, he knows, is not that. But the whole of Kageyama’s attention is focused on him, like his body is the only one that’s ever registered, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

Kageyama pushes up, trying ineffectually to take his pants off with one hand. Suga rests his hand lightly on Kageyama’s hip. “A couch is good for talking. A bed is better, for this.”

The move will give them time to breathe, to think. When the door is shut behind them, Suga pulls Kageyama to sit next to him on the bed, his fingers poised on his top button. “You--”

“I’m sure.”

Suga laughs. “Just checking. If you get not sure, say so, okay?”

Kageyama nods.

Suga undresses him slowly, savoring every tiny hitched breath. He kisses Kageyama on his collarbone and lays him back onto the pillows. He keeps it gentle, exploratory. Like how it had been when they first started this, as Kageyama was learning, for the first time, what the solid weight of arms around him felt like. The slow marveling of skin on skin.

Kageyama lifts his hips up as Suga pulls down his pants. His breathing is shallow, his eyes are dark. He is absolutely already hard. Suga watches his face as he runs his fingers lightly along the curve of his hipbone, down. Kageyama holds his gaze. It’s molten.

Suga stops for a moment to work at taking off his own clothes. As soon as he pulls back, Kageyama groans. Suga opens his mouth to tell Kageyama to be patient, but, he figures, as Kageyama sits up and pulls Suga’s shirt off like it personally offends him for existing, he has been patient enough. Suga laughs.

As soon as Suga is shirtless, it becomes a tornado of clothing followed by a veritable feast of skin. It is like Kageyama is trying to make up for years of lost time, of touching he could have been doing, all at once. His hands are in Suga’s hair, then squeezing his ass, then pressing thumb shape bruises into his shoulders as he twists their bodies so he can have better access to, God, all of it. He kisses everywhere he can, whimpering as Suga kisses back.

It is, as seems possible for Kageyama and no one else, somehow still graceful in its wildness. They grab at each other, pushing against each other, chasing pleasure where they find it--everywhere their bodies touch. Suga considers taking hold of his wrists, slowing him down, laughing and guiding his hands where they could be used more expeditiously, but he’ll have time, later, to show Kageyama the more delicate things his body likes. Now, he lets him have this hungry thing. He sighs into it, letting himself get consumed, hands and tongue and teeth, until they both shake and cry out in turn, sticky and sweaty and tangled and grinning.

After, Suga thinks about all the things he learned about Kageyama all those years ago, just from watching. He adds, now, the slow, short sound of his laugh, incredulous and punch drunk as he buries it into the crook of Suga’s neck. Suga wants to see his face, what it looks like when he laughs, but there will be time for that later, he decides. For now, he can feel it rumbling against him, and that is good enough.


End file.
